Possessed Sheep
by LoLoGreeneVines
Summary: In which Masaki Kurosaki and Kanae Katagiri sew a duvet cover together, and Ryuken Ishida (possibly) realises that his mother is an idiot.


**Author's notes: Yes. This is my headcanon. I hope you enjoy it. :)**

* * *

Masaki bounced down the corridor, clutching the cross-eyed felt sheep she had sewn in the school textiles club. Upon finishing it and realising it looked more like a misshapen cloud with boggle eyes, she had decided to show it to Ryuken. He was always so kind to her, Masaki had wondered whether he would be nice enough not to point out the fact that the sheep looked possessed.

However, before Masaki could reach her cousin's bedroom door, she noticed the door to the library was ajar and peeked inside, unable to stifle her curiosity. When she noticed Kanae Katagiri sitting at a desk in the centre of the room with a bag of fabric at her feet and a pair of white trousers and a needle in her hands, Masaki pushed the door open.

"Hi, Kanae!" Masaki grinned, bounding into the room and taking a seat next to the startled maid.

"Lady Masaki," Kanae replied, looking up from the trousers. "Did you have a good day?"

Masaki beamed. "Yes, thank you!" Thinking quickly, she put the sheep on the table where Kanae could see it. "I made a sheep in textiles! Isn't he cute?"

Kanae examined the piece of flaccid felt, a light frown on her face, as Masaki adopted a mischievous grin. "Why, he's lovely, Lady Masaki," Kanae responded, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. After staring at the maid expectantly for a couple of seconds, Masaki burst into laughter.

"Okay, you failed," Masaki giggled. "He's terrible, and you're a liar. Thank you for being nice enough not to point it out, though."

Kanae gave an uncertain nod, before returning to the trousers.

"Are those Ryuken's trousers?" Masaki wondered aloud, noticing how when she mentioned her cousin's name Kanae's stitching sped up slightly. "What are you doing to them?"

"Yes, they're Master Ryuken's," Kanae eventually said. "I'm taking in the waist slightly."

"Yeah, he is rather skinny, isn't he?" Masaki remarked, giggling. "I should probably stop stealing his food, I only do it because I know he's too nice to tell me off for it but he could really do with it himself."

Kanae frowned slightly. "No, he's fine, he just happens to be between sizes. I know you steal his food, Lady Masaki. Why do you think I always give him slightly larger portions?"

"Oooh," Masaki breathed. "I thought you did that because you love him."

Kanae's head jolted up from the trousers and she stared at Masaki in alarm. "Sorry?"

"Oh, nothing," Masaki said, airily, before hastily changing the subject. "Hey, Kanae, do you think you could teach me how to sew better? I really wanted to make myself a duvet cover, but you can see how badly my own sewing experiment went," she laughed, gesturing towards the demonic sheep sitting on the desk.

Kanae's startled expression slowly faded away, to be replaced by a small smile. "Certainly, Lady Masaki. I have some fabric we can use here," she said, setting down the trousers and digging into the bag by her feet, eventually pulling out a very large folded square of light blue fabric. "Do you like the colour?"

"Ooh, yes!" Masaki exclaimed, taking the fabric and opening the folded square to reveal a large sheet. "It's perfect! And we could put a big white cross on it, for Quincy!"

"It's your project, Lady Masaki," Kanae said. "Okay, let's start by cutting a large square..."

The next couple of hours passed in a blur as the two girls worked together to create the duvet cover. Masaki was astonished to find that Kanae was so adept with a needle that by the time she had traced a slightly wobbly outline and cut the white cross out of a separate sheet of fabric, the maid had successfully sewn the blue fabric into the correct shape, complete with button-holes at one end, and hemmed it.

"You're so fast," Masaki said, enviously, admiring the stretched-out sheet of fabric spread out on the library floor. "How do you do that?"

Kanae smiled furtively. "I have a top-secret stitching technique that _nobody_ will ever know about."

Masaki pouted. "Oh, go on, you can tell me!" she wheedled, widening her eyes into an hopeful expression.

"Oh, okay," Kanae conceded, her eyes glinting slightly. "Basically, I stitch, but really really fast."

"That's a disappointment," Masaki pointed out in indignation. "I was expecting something like folding the fabric and holding the needle steady to thread."

Kanae shook her head. "That's a good idea, the sort of creativity you need when sewing, but the results usually aren't that good. That results in uneven stitches, so it's not worth it."

"Oh, poo," Masaki muttered.

"All right," Kanae said, finishing her hem. "If I sew the buttons along the bottom edge, would you like to sew the cross to the front, Lady Masaki?"

"I'd love to!" Masaki declared, excitably stretching out her cross over the plain blue fabric and reaching for a spool of white thread. Masaki threaded her needle and began eagerly stitching the cross to the front of the cover, careful to keep the stitches even and occasionally adjusting the fabric of the cross whenever it began looking wonky, but she was delighted to find, once she had finished, that Kanae's measurements had been spot-on and her cross was the perfect size for the sheet of fabric.

"I'm done!" Masaki glanced up at Kanae, who had finished the buttons ages ago and returned to Ryuken's trousers, and Kanae set down the trousers again to take in Masaki's handiwork.

"It looks good, Lady Masaki!" Kanae said, encouragingly. "You'd never know it was sewn by the same girl responsible for that sheep," she said, glancing towards the fluffy abomination which was still sitting on the desk and glaring as though everything in the world had personally offended it.

"Aww, but I thought you liked Lucy!" Masaki pouted, picking up the sheep and making it wave a fuzzy hoof at the maid.

"Lucy, Lady Masaki?" Kanae prompted.

Masaki held the toy in front of her own face and frowned at it. "Yeah, short for Lucifer." Kanae blinked.

"What are you holding, Masaki?" a voice asked from by the door.

Noticing Kanae's eyes widen slightly, Masaki spun back around towards the door to greet their visitor.

"Oh, hi, Ryuken!" Masaki chirruped, flying over to her cousin standing by the door and holding the sheep in his face. "Look what I made earlier! Don't you find it just adorable?"

"Oh, yes," Ryuken said uncertainly, looking anywhere but at the ugly sheep. "And what's this on the floor?" he asked, gesturing towards the duvet cover.

Masaki giggled. "You're lying, Ryuken, the sheep is atrociously bad!" she sang. Ryuken didn't respond.

"This is a duvet cover made by Lady Masaki, Master Ryuken," Kanae said, quickly. It didn't go unnoticed by Masaki how her cousin's expression minutely changed at the sound of the maid's voice.

"Oh, no, I only made the cross!" Masaki exclaimed, as Ryuken examined the duvet cover. "Kanae here was the one who measured everything, did the majority of the sewing and stitched the buttons on. She's amazing, really, I never could have sewn anything so quickly!"

Masaki grinned as Ryuken smiled kindly at Kanae. "Nice work, Miss Katagiri," he said, as she picked up the pair of trousers on the desk and handed them to him.

"Thank you, Master Ryuken," she said. "I finished the work on your trousers, too. I'm afraid the evening meal might be very slightly later than usual, though, I got distracted working with Lady Masaki. I'm terribly sorry-"

"It's not a problem, Miss Katagiri," Ryuken responded swiftly. "Thank you for working so hard on the trousers."

Kanae blinked and scurried for the door. "Thank you, young Master," she said, leaving the room.

"Kanae!"

Kanae reappeared in the door, summoned by the sound of Masaki's voice.

"Do you think we could sew together again in the future? It was fun working with you!"

"Masaki," Ryuken warned. "I don't think my mother would be too happy..."

"I don't care," Masaki replied, stubbornly. "I like Kanae."

Kanae blinked. "If you so wish, Lady Masaki. Good evening." And with that, she left again.

After a while, Masaki spoke again. "Kanae's great, isn't she?" she chattered at Ryuken. "She's amazing at sewing, she makes really good food-"

"If the fact that you always steal mine once you've finished your own is anything to go by, then yes," Ryuken said in a slightly strained voice. Masaki giggled.

"Oh, I was thinking I might stop that," she said, vaguely. "Teasing you is fun, but there are probably better ways to go about it."

Ryuken raised an eyebrow. "What exactly are you going to do with that duvet cover?" he asked, gesturing towards the sheet on the floor, which Masaki began gathering up.

"Duh, I was going to sleep under it!" Masaki retorted, sticking her tongue out. "But then," she added, choosing her words carefully, "I thought that if _I_ ever have a child, perhaps I can give it to them and pass a bit of Quincy heritage on. I'd like that."

Masaki examined Ryuken's resigned expression and knew that he had picked up on her choice of pronoun, and the implications. "Yes, I'm sure that would be nice," he said, turning his face away. "Well, I must go and prepare for the evening meal. I'm sure Miss Katagiri won't take long to have it ready. Good evening, Masaki."

Masaki waved cheerfully as her cousin exited the room, before returning to gathering up the duvet cover, wondering how long it was going to take for Ryuken to realise that his mother was an idiot.


End file.
